wisdom to win

 Wisdom to Win
search bar left
search bar right
 

Creativity Quotes

 

Top 50 Creativity Quotes

 

No 1 (Best quote!)Creativity Quotes

Nothing drives progress like the imagination.

- Theodore (Ted) Levitt, pictured right, in The Marketing Imagination (1983)

 Creativity Quotes

William Wordsworth (1770-1850), English poet, pictured right, in his poem The Prelude (1850) agrees:

Imagination...is but another name for absolute power.

 

 

No 2Creativity Quotes

Imitation is suicide.

- Dale Carnegie, pictured right, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (1944)

 

 

No 3Creativity Quotes

The difficulty lies not in the new ideas but in escaping the old ones.

- John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), English economist, pictured right.

 

 

No 4Creativity Quotes

Genius is one per cent inspiration, ninety-nine per cent perspiration.

- Thomas Edison (1847–1931) American inventor, pictured right.

 

 

No 5Creativity Quotes

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world: the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.

(from Man and Superman, 1903)

- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish writer, pictured right above.

 Creativity Quotes

The English writer Douglas Adams (1952-2001), pictured right, after agrees:

Let us think the unthinkable, let us do the undoable.

 

 

No 6Creativity Quotes

Let chaos reign, then rein in chaos.

- Andrew Grove, boss of Intel 1987-98, pictured right.

 

This balance between order and chaos is supported by two great thinkers:

 Creativity Quotes

Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC) Greek philosopher,pictured right.

 Creativity Quotes

Harmony in discord.

- Horace (65-8 BC), Roman poet, pictured right.

 Creativity Quotes

The German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), pictured right, adds:

You must have chaos in you, to give birth to a dancing star.

 

 

No 7Creativity Quotes

Creative people have an abiding curiosity and an insatiable desire to learn how and why things work.

- William (Bill) Hewlett (1919-2001), co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.

 

 

No 8Creativity Quotes

Don’t be trapped by dogma which is the result of other people’s thinking.

- Steve Jobs (1955- 2011), co-founder of Apple, pictured right.

 

 

No 9Creativity Quotes

Curiosity is the key to creativity.

- Akio Morita (1921-1999), co-founder of Sony, pictured right.

 Creativity Quotes

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) German-born American scientist agrees,pictured right:

The important thing is not to stop questioning: never lose a holy curiosity.

 

But Dumbledore in JK Rowling's, pictured right, Goblet of Fire warns us:Creativity Quotes

Curiosity is not a sin.... But we should exercise caution with our curiosity

 

 

No 10Creativity Quotes

Minds are like parachutes. They only function when they are open.

- James Dewar (1842–1923), Scottish physicist, pictured right.

 

 

No 11Creativity Quotes

Ask an impertinent question and you are on your way to a pertinent answer

(from The Ascent of Man, 1973)

- Jacob Bronowski (1908-74), Polish-born British scientist, pictured right .

 Creativity Quotes

So Claude Lévi-Strauss (1908-2009), the French anthropologist, pictured right, says:

The wise man is not the man who gives the right answers; he is the one who asks the right questions.

 

 

No 12Creativity Quotes

Our life is the creation of our mind.

- Gautama Buddha (563-483 BC), founder of Buddhism, pictured right.

 Creativity Quotes

 

No 13

I live entirely in my music.

- Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) German composer, pictured right above.

 Creativity Quotes

Nick Park (1958- ) English film animator and creator of Wallace and Gromit, pictured right, agrees:

With anything creative, you get fired up and absorbed by the idea

 

 

No 14Creativity Quotes

Criticize by creating.

- Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian painter, sculptor, architect and poet, pictured right.

 

 

No 15Creativity Quotes

I want to touch people with my art. I want them to say ‘he feels deeply, he feels tenderly'.

- Vincent van Gogh (1853-90) Dutch painter, pictured right.

 Creativity Quotes

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91) Austrian composer ,pictured right, agrees:

I pay no attention whatever to anybody’s praise or blame... I simply follow my own feelings.

 

 

No 16Creativity Quotes

I work on intuition, thinking that an idea ought to be right, then I try to prove it.

- Stephen Hawking (1942- ) English scientist, pictured right.

 Creativity Quotes

Steve Jobs (1955- 2011), co-founder of Apple, pictured right, has similar views:

Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.

 Creativity Quotes

Albert Einstein (1879-1955), the German-born American scientist, pictured right, also said:

I believe in intuition and inspiration.

 

 

No 17Creativity Quotes

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes .

- Marcel Proust (1871-1922) French writer, pictured right.

 

 

No 18Creativity Quotes

The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst has been done in turmoil,

- Thomas Edison 1847–1931 American inventor, pictured right.

 

 

No 19Creativity Quotes

The world can only be grasped by action, not by contemplation…The hand is the cutting edge of the mind.

(from The Ascent of Man, 1973)

- Jacob Bronowski (1908-74), Polish-born British scientist, pictured right .

 

 

No 20Creativity Quotes

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.

- John Stuart Mill (1806–73) English philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 21Creativity Quotes

I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.

- Isaac Newton (1642-1727) ,English scientist, pictured right.

 

 

No 22Creativity Quotes

It is surely harmful to souls to make it a heresy to believe what is proved.

- Galileo (1564-1642), Italian scientist, pictured right.

 

 

No 23Creativity Quotes

The most basic principle of lateral thinking is that any particular way of looking at things is only one from among any other possible ways.

- Edward de Bono, pictured right, in Lateral Thinking (1970)

 

 

No 24Creativity Quotes

Creativity comes from looking for the unexpected and stepping outside your own experience.

- Masaru Ibuka (1908-97), co-founder of Sony, pictured right.
 

 

 

No 25Creativity Quotes

All great truths begin as blasphemies.

- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950), Irish playwright, pictured right.

 

 

No 26Creativity Quotes

Truth springs from argument amongst friends.

- David Hume (1711–76) Scottish philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 27Creativity Quotes

You cannot get the truth by capturing it, only by its capturing you.

- Soren Kierkegaard (1813-55) Danish philosopher, pictured right.

 

 

No 28Creativity Quotes

I do not seek, I find.

- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973), Spanish artist, pictured right.

 

 

No 29

The wisdom of a learned man cometh by opportunity of leisure: and he that hath little business shall become wise.

- Ecclesiasticus ch 38 v 24 (in the Bible)

 

 

No 30Creativity Quotes

Song writing is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something.

- John Lennon (1940-80), one of the Beatles, pictured right.

 

 

No 31Creativity Quotes

Ideas are important but reality is even more important.

- Mao Zedong (1893-1976), pictured right, Chinese leader.

 

 

No 32Creativity Quotes

Look at life, draw from life and express from life.

- Nic Fiddian Green (1963- ), English sculptor,pictured right

 

 

No 33Creativity Quotes

Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.

- Erich Fromm (1900-80), American philosopher and psychologist,pictured right, .

 

 

No 34Creativity Quotes

Everything comes from experiment.

- Josiah Wedgwood (1730-95), English pottery manufacturer,pictured right,

 

 

No 35Creativity Quotes

The creation of a thousand forests is one acorn.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American writer and philosopher,pictured right.

 

 

Creativity QuotesNo 36

The need to be right all the time is the biggest bar to new ideas. It is better to have enough ideas for some of them to be wrong than to be always right by having no ideas.

- Edward de Bono, pictured right, in Six Thinking Hats (1985)

 

 

Creativity QuotesNo 37

If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it would not seem so wonderful at all.

- Michelangelo (1475-1564) Italian painter, sculptor, architect and poet, pictured right.

 

 

No 38Creativity Quotes

Nothing is more important than to see the sources of invention which are, in my opinion, more interesting than the inventions themselves.

- Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716), German philosopher and mathematician,pictured right.

 

 

No 39Creativity Quotes

That which seems the height of absurdity in one generation often becomes the height of wisdom in the next.

- John Stuart Mill (1806-73), English philosopher,pictured right.

 

 

No 40Creativity Quotes

The true lover of knowledge naturally strives for truth and is not content with common opinion but soars with undimmed and unwearied passion till he grasps the essential nature of things.

- Plato (427-347 BC), Greek philosopher,pictured right.

 

 

No 41Creativity Quotes

Ideas shape the course of history.

- John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946), English economist,pictured right.

 

 

No 42Creativity Quotes

Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events.

- William James (1842-1910), American psychologist and philosopher,pictured right.

 

 

No 43Creativity Quotes

It’s necessary to be slightly underemployed, if you are to do something significant.

- James Watson (1928-), American scientist, pictured right.

 

 

No 44Creativity Quotes

Only daring speculation can lead us further and not accumulation of facts.

- Albert Einstein (1879-1955), German-born American scientist, pictured right.

 

 

No 45Creativity Quotes

You ask how to fight an idea. I'll tell you how. With another idea.

- Messala (Stephen Boyd in the film, Ben-Hur,1958, pictured right).

 

 

No 46Creativity Quotes

The only available method for changing ideas is conflict. 

- Edward de Bono, pictured right, Lateral Thinking (1970)

 

 

No 47Creativity Quotes

The source of new ideas is people. 

- Rosabeth Moss Kanter, pictured right, The Change Masters (1984)

 

 

No 48Creativity Quotes

If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it. 

- Heraclitus (c540-c480BC),pictured right, the Greek philosopher

 

 

No 49Creativity Quotes

Men think differently who live differently.

- Harold Laski (1893-1950), English political writer and professor, pictured right.

 

 

No  50Creativity Quotes

Never stifle a generous impulse

- William (Bill) Hewlett (1919-2001), co-founder of Hewlett-Packard, pictured right.

Free Newsletter
Enter your name and e-mail address to receive our free newsletter with analysis of business issues and new business books

Quotes